Introduction to Handbuilding: A Little of Everything

Five weeks, five ways to make something out of clay without ever touching a wheel. This class is a guided tour of handbuilding — you’ll pinch, you’ll slab, you’ll coil, you’ll carve — and by the end you’ll know which technique you want to chase further. For those who are brand new to clay, and also for wheel throwers who want to see what the other half of the studio is doing.

We start small with pinch and press-mold forms, then move into slab construction — soft slabs draped into bowls and platters, hard slabs joined into boxes and planters. From there we build up with coils, and spend a week on the surface techniques that make handbuilt work distinctive: texture, sprigs, colored slip, and sgraffito. Our fifth and final week is glazing, where you’ll pull from our 65+ in-house designed glazes and learn how to finish everything you’ve made. Rachel leads through group demonstrations, discussion of example pieces, and one-on-one feedback.

5-week class curriculum: Week 1: Pinch and press molds, Week 2: Slab building, Week 3: Coil construction, Week 4: Surface decoration and texture, Week 5: Glazing

Saturdays 10am-12:30pm with Rachel for 5 weeks: Sept 12, 19, 26, Oct 3, 10 for $290.